About this book

Forest Policy and Ecological Change: Hyderabad State in Colonial India is an attempt to highlight the history of forestry in colonial India in the context of the Nizam's Dominions, popularly called the Hyderabad State. The ownership of forests by the State through administrative authority and its monopoly over the commercial exploitation of forest resources were central to the history of state forestry in the Hyderabad State. Since the government categorized forests into reserved, protected and open forests, the main objective for the forest administration was to conserve the existing forests and exploit them systematically. As in the other parts of colonial India, state management of forest resources marked a watershed in the Hyderabad State as well.

It was from the second half of the nineteenth century, under the influence of the British, that the State evolved a sustained policy of regulation and exploitation of forest tracts. This new policy of forest management came in the way of people's access to the forest and its natural resources. Forest Policy and Ecological Change: Hyderabad State in Colonial India explains how the State managed the pressures between the conservation of forests on the one hand and commercial exploitation on the other due to agrarian expansion and introduction of railways. The contents presented in jargon-free language will be of interest to historians, students, researchers and those interested in the environmental history of India.

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